Safety records
The safety records somebody asks for on the worst possible day.
Nobody buys safety software because they want to. You buy it because a GC asked for twelve weeks of toolbox talks by Friday, or because an incident happened and the question is what you can prove. SubMark holds the records: talks with a signature per attendee, inspections with a score and a failed-items count, and worker certifications and subcontractor COIs that warn you a month before they lapse. It does not tell you what the regulations mean — that is not ours to say.
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- Toolbox talks signed off per attendee, in English, Spanish or both at once.
- Inspections off your own templates, scored 0–100, with corrective actions tracked.
- Expiring certs and expiring COIs, counted 30 days out, on one dashboard.
Why the safety binder fails the one time it matters.
The proof is in a truck
Toolbox talk sign-in sheets live on a clipboard in a foreman’s truck until the end of the month, or the end of the job, or the end of never. When a GC asks for twelve weeks of them on a Thursday, somebody drives to three jobs.
Certifications expire quietly
A scissor-lift card, a confined-space cert, an OSHA 30. Nothing announces its own expiry. You find out when a GC’s safety manager finds out, which is at the gate, with the man already on site.
Your tier-two subs are your problem
Their COI, their EMR, their safety program. You collected it at buyout, filed it, and have not looked since. The certificate expired in March and the GC is going to ask you, not them.
Inspections are a photo and a memory
A superintendent walks the job and tells your foreman about three things. None of it is written down, so there is no record that it was raised, no record that it was fixed, and no way to see that the same ladder violation has come up four times.
Nobody can see a pattern
You have the incidents in one folder, the violations in a notebook and the near-misses nowhere. The question an insurer or a GC prequal asks — what are your repeat issues and what did you do about them — has no answer you can produce in an afternoon.
The crew signed a sheet they could not read
A talk delivered in Spanish, documented on an English sign-in sheet. It is the normal state of affairs on a mixed crew, and it quietly weakens every signature on the page.
How the record gets made.
Four things live here, and each one exists because somebody eventually asks for it in writing. None of them is paperwork your safety lead was not already doing on a clipboard.
- 01 Build or borrow a toolbox topic
A topic carries a title, a category, the body, key points, discussion questions and an OSHA Reference. SubMark ships a starter library filtered to your trade; clone a topic and edit it, or write your own from scratch.
- 02 Deliver the talk and sign the crew off
A delivered talk records the topic, the project (or Company-wide if it was everybody), the date, the location, notes, and an attendee list signed off per person. The card reads "N attended", which is the number the GC wanted.
- 03 Record the language it was actually given in
English, Spanish, or Bilingual — and Bilingual means one huddle covered in both languages, which is a real thing on a mixed crew rather than a box somebody ticked. The record says what happened.
- 04 Walk the job against your own template
An inspection template is a name and a checklist, one item per line. Each item is recorded pass, fail or N/A; the inspection gets a 0–100 score and a failed-items count, and attaches to a project. Corrective actions are tracked from there.
- 05 Load every certification once, with its expiry
A certification has a type, a person, a certificate number, an issued date, an optional expiry and the document itself. The person can be one of your workers or Other with a name and a sub company, which is how a tier-two guy’s card ends up in the same place as your own.
- 06 Qualify your subs with the numbers you were given
Qualified or Not Qualified, EMR rate and EMR year, TRIR, DART, 300A year, a Qualified Through date, notes and their safety program document. One record per sub, not an email thread.
- 07 Read the dashboard before somebody else does
Expiring certs in 30 days and expiring COIs in 30 days as separate counts, violations by category and by severity, and Workers at Risk as a strike count against a threshold of three in 365 days by default.
- 08 Log a violation while it is fresh
Your safety lead or an admin files it: category from a fixed list, a severity, and the action taken. A moderate, serious or willful violation counts as a strike against the worker.
Everything above ships today and none of it is a tier you upgrade into. The core modules are on in every trade pack from setup; a few extras, like the invoices inbox, are a switch in Settings. The full list is on the product page.
In the app
The exact fields and option lists.
Specific enough to check against the trial, which is the point of printing them:
- Toolbox topic
- Title, category, body, key points, discussion questions and an OSHA Reference. Global topics are the built-in starter library; clone one to make it yours, or write your own.
- Delivered talk
- Topic, project or Company-wide, date, location, language, notes, and an attendee list signed off per person.
- Talk language
- English, Spanish or Bilingual. Bilingual records one huddle covered in both, not two separate talks.
- Inspection template
- A name plus checklist items, one per line. Can be Global or your own.
- Inspection result
- Pass, fail or N/A per item, a 0–100 score, a failed-items count, a project, and corrective actions tracked from the failures.
- Certification
- Type, person, certificate number, issued date, optional expiry, attached document. Status is derived: expiring, then expired.
- Certification holder
- One of your workers, or Other with a name and a Sub Company — so a tier-two worker’s card is tracked beside your own crew’s.
- Subcontractor qualification
- Qualified / Not Qualified, EMR rate and EMR year, TRIR, DART, 300A Year, Qualified Through date, notes, and a safety program document.
- Safety dashboard
- Tabs for Overview, Violations, Strikes, Recognitions, Incidents and Corrective Actions.
- The two expiry tiles
- Expiring certs (30d) and expiring COIs (30d), counted separately, because they are two different phone calls.
- Workers at Risk
- A worker’s strike count against the threshold: three strikes in 365 days by default, counting moderate, serious and willful violations. Recognitions are tracked on the same dashboard as the other half of that ledger.
- Violation
- Category — PPE, Fall Protection, Electrical Hazard, Ladder/Scaffold, Housekeeping, Other. Severity — minor, moderate, serious, willful. Action taken — verbal warning, corrected on site, written warning, sent home, suspended, terminated, other.
The OSHA Reference on a built-in topic is a pointer to the standard the talk relates to, not legal advice, and standards change. On a topic you write, it holds whatever you typed and SubMark does not check it. Either way, read the talk and check the citation before you deliver it.
Straight answer
What it does not do, stated plainly.
A product page that only lists wins is a product page you stop trusting in week two. These are the gaps, in our own words, before you find them yourself.
- Safety is a module you switch on. Most companies start with it off, though some trade setups turn it on by default, so check your company settings if you do not see it.
- It is not a compliance authority. SubMark does not interpret any regulation, does not tell you whether you are in compliance, and does not generate a written safety program. If a page anywhere implies otherwise, that page is wrong.
- It does not file anything with any agency, and it does not produce a government form. No 300, no 300A, no submission on your behalf. The 300A Year on a sub’s qualification record is a field holding a figure you were given, not a form SubMark fills in.
- Whether an incident is recordable is your call and your carrier’s. SubMark records that it happened and what you did; it does not classify it for you.
- The built-in topic library is a starting point, not a certified curriculum or legal advice. Its OSHA references point to a standard and are not kept in step with every revision, and a reference on a topic you write is whatever you typed. Have someone qualified review a talk before it is delivered.
- EMR, TRIR and DART are stored as you enter them. Nothing is calculated, verified against a bureau, or refreshed when the year rolls over — a Qualified Through date that has passed is a date that has passed, not a reminder somebody else maintains.
- A toolbox sign-off records that a named attendee signed. It does not establish that a worker understood the content, and no software can.
Which trades feel this most.
Same problem, different shape. Each trade page leads with that trade's own phases, schedule of values and wording.
Electrical
Arc-flash and lockout-tagout training with hard expiry dates, on a crew that moves between jobs weekly.
Roofing
Fall protection is the whole conversation, and the inspection record is the first thing anybody asks for after an incident.
Structural Steel
Connectors, aerial lifts and welding tickets — certifications with dates a GC checks at the gate.
Questions
Safety records: what a sub’s office actually asks.
Does SubMark tell me whether I am OSHA compliant?
No, and be wary of anything that says it does. SubMark holds your records — talks, sign-offs, inspections, certifications, violations, incidents — so that you can produce them. It does not interpret regulations, does not judge your compliance, and does not generate a safety program. Those are your safety professional’s job and your carrier’s.
Does it file my OSHA forms?
No. Nothing is submitted to any agency and no government form is produced. The 300A Year field on a subcontractor qualification record stores a number somebody gave you; it is not a form being filled in.
Can I document a toolbox talk given in Spanish?
Yes, and you can document the case that actually happens most: Bilingual, meaning one huddle covered in both languages. The language is recorded on the delivered talk alongside the date, the location and the per-person sign-off, so the record reflects the talk that was really given.
How far ahead do I hear about an expiring certification?
The dashboard carries two 30-day counts — expiring certifications and expiring COIs — as separate tiles, because they are separate phone calls to separate people. On the certification itself, status derives from the expiry date: expiring first, then expired.
Can I track my lower-tier subs’ safety records too?
Yes. A certification can belong to one of your own workers or to Other, with a name and a sub company, so a tier-two worker’s lift card sits in the same list as your crew’s. Each sub company also gets a qualification record: Qualified or not, EMR and EMR year, TRIR, DART, 300A year, a Qualified Through date and their safety program document.
Are the toolbox topics written for me?
SubMark ships a starter library of topics, filtered to your trade, and you can clone one and edit it or write your own. The built-in topics cite the OSHA standard they relate to, as a pointer for whoever gives the talk. They are a starting point, not a certified curriculum: read a talk and check its citation before you deliver it.
What does this cost for my foremen?
Nothing. Field users are free and unlimited, and a worker signs his own toolbox-talk attendance from a phone. Pricing is one company subscription with your first three office users included, then a per-seat price for each office user after that. Inspections, certifications and violations are entered by your safety lead or an admin; PMs and superintendents can deliver talks too.
Is this a replacement for a safety manager?
No. It is the filing system a safety manager — or the PM carrying that hat at a 40-person sub — stops losing things in. The judgment calls stay with a person who is qualified to make them.
Read next
Safety documentation a commercial sub actually has to keep
What a GC, an insurer and a prequal each ask for, and which of those three is driving the request you just got.
How to manage lower-tier subcontractors
Their COI and their EMR become your problem the moment they are on your badge. This is the rest of that job.
What belongs in a foreman’s daily log
The other field record that decides a dispute. Written the same day, for the same reason.
Put last month’s talks in it.
Start the trial, enter four weeks of toolbox talks and load your crew’s certifications with their expiry dates. The first thing most offices find is a card that lapsed a while ago.
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$249/mo for your company, your first 3 office users included, $39/mo each after that. Field crews are free and unlimited. See what's included →
The rest of the job
Change orders
From the day the field finds the change to the day it is in the schedule of values, with an audit trail at every step.
T&M tickets
Priced in the office off your own rate lists, signed on site, and several tickets roll into one change order.
Schedule of values
One SOV per job, built from your trade’s own breakdown, locked when the first draw goes out, and approved change orders added to it automatically.
Draw tracking
Fifteen jobs, nine GCs, nine cutoff dates and nine submission methods — in one calendar and one log, with drawn, certified and received as three different numbers.
Retainage tracking
Five or ten percent of everything you have ever billed, sitting somewhere, on jobs some of which finished last year.
Daily logs
The record that wins an argument nine months later, written in two minutes by a foreman who wants to go home.
Lien waiver tracking
Which waivers went up the chain, which the GC has received, and which draw is sitting still because one of them has not.
Job costing
The overrun you can still do something about, instead of the one you find in the end-of-job autopsy.
Crew scheduling
Who is on which job on Monday, across every job — and a flag the moment the same crew is promised to two of them.
QuickBooks
Bills and card purchases pull back as job costs. Draws and POs push across with a click. Your books stay your books.
Time tracking
Hours per worker, per job, per day — signed by the worker who worked them, approved by the office, and read straight into job costing.